I second to it,... it's a demanding 2nd time watch for me,.......n' ........ so with Interstellar,...

In last Starwars movie, somehow i saw it in 8-10 intervals with no holding material,. just time-pass and eye-candy science watch,..
no holding in the story or any excitement for me, much,.... also repeat of the same cameratography and technology, which already saw in previous all versions,... starting from fifth city,... Fifth city ( 20+ yrs old movie ) had rather better cinematography of flying cars,..

Waterloo movie's main achievement is the fact that it manages to win a bit of sympathy for the loser of the battle of Waterloo , Napolean Bonaparte . Inspite of him being a megalomaniac who invaded large parts of Europe , you do feel for the great man as he nears the end of his illustrious career as warrior .

The movie was made with Russian soldiers as extras , which reduced the budget as they demanded less pay than westerners and allowed for the creation of large armies of actual men rather than create them by special effects . That indeed is the special point of the film ; it really shows large armies of real men manoeuvring and skirmishing and clashing in battle .

The movie begins with Napolean surrendering before his enemies and being forced to abdicate to the island of Elba , but a wave of popular emotion in France brings him back to power . The scenes of crowds of French men and women cheering him are authentically portrayed . Marshals who have promised to keep Napolean in an iron cage are forced to accept him back and he forgives them generously because he needs them to command his armies . But his enemies led by the British are not ready to accept him as ruler of France and war is certain .

The British forces are led by Arthur Wellesley , a slim and cool person who is not ruffled by changes in fortune when battle is going on or when persons close to him are killed ; His own daughter's fiance is destined to be killed in the coming encounter . As news comes that Napolean is on the march , Wellesley coolly asks the ball dance that is happening to go on . He shockingly talks about his own soldiers as scum , but accepts before his wife that the scum are wiling to lay their lives for him .

The tension in the two camps on the night before battle is well built up , and Napolean has ill health because of the tension . The battle is all or nothing for him , and France is alone against the armies of Britain and Prussia . The Prussians are led by Blucher but are away and it is not certain whether they will arrive to impact the battle in time .

As the two armies confront each other , it is a grand spectacle for a connoisseur of war movies . The British are in red uniforms , the French are in blue and the Prussians are in black .Perfectly disciplined formations of men go into battle with drums beating and guns roaring and firing yellow flames and acrid smoke . The charges of heavy cavalry are well pictured , with masses of horsemen charging the battleground in ever increasing speed filling you with awe and the enemy with fear .

At first the battle goes in favour of the French as they manage to storm a well defended fortified position of the British , but when Napolean is taking rest his marshal orders a charge of cavalry without infantry support . The British infantry which is well dug in defends doggedly by making several square formations . However Napolean still manages to retrieve the French position and soon Wellesley is in dispair as he is staring at defeat . But the French marshal ( Degrouchy ) who was supposed to stop the Prussians sticks too rigidly to orders and does not follow their forces . This allows Blucher and his Prussians to arrive to attack the main French troops just when needed by their allies the British . The battle decisively swings in the favour of Napolean's enemies because of this and all is lost for him.....his troops however refuse the British offer to surrender and prefer to to be mown down by artillery guns to redeem their honour ; the final scene is full of pathos as the victor ( Arthur Wellesley---the future Duke of Wellington ) surveys the battlefield .

The movie scores in acting , and photography and colours are good . Background music is decent too . I would rate it three stars out of five .

The real problem for the moviemakers was an impossible one---to match the novel on which the movie was supposed to be based . And EXODUS is one of the most influential novels of the 20th century , a masterpiece if there ever was one ( GODFATHER and CARPETBAGGERS are others ) . But the novel is so vast in scope and scale that it was not possible to pack all it's events in one movie , even though the movie was already long at 3 hours 15 minutes . A miniseries would have been more apt to film the novel , but it would not have had the grandeur of a film would it ?? Certainly not in the era of small TV sets which did not have HD ; the movie was made way back in 1960 when TV technology was in it's infancy . So a cinemascope movie that left out some of the events in the novel was made .

The movie starts with an American nurse ( played by Eva Marie Saint ) who is a volunteer at the internment camp of holocaust survivors in Cyprus wanting to adopt a young danish Jew girl and take her back to the US . But fate has other plans as a rebel Jew ( played by Paul Newman ) who had fought in the British Jew brigade smuggles many Jews including the danish girl onto a ship which is renamed the 'Exodus' , and the ship is destined to sail to Palestine . The Danish girl ( played by Jill Haworth ) is in love with a holocaust survivor ( played by Sal Mineo ) and wants to go to Palestine and not America . The American nurse also boards the ship , and the rebel Jew threatens to blast the ship by dynamite if the British authorities do not remove their blockade of the ship . So they relent and allow it to sail to the cheers of the Jews not only in the ship but also in the internment camp . Their joy is to be seen to be believed ; the call of the holy land promised for 2000 years and now at last in reach after innumerable sufferings is something that others like me will not even begin to understand....

All the Jews have stories of persecution and horror to tell ; the stories are beyond the imagination of those who have led secure lives . For example , the holocaust survivor loved by the danish girl had chosen to co operate with the nazis to bury murdered members of his own community by dynamite in order to save himself , and the nazis have done unspeakable things to him . The British officers guarding the internment camp also look at the Jews with racism and think of them as troublemakers .

The movie has two love stories---one of the american nurse who first loves the character played by Newman , but feels different from his family and rejects him until a life and death situation makes her realise her love for him . The other is of the danish girl who has fallen in love with the holocaust survivor . The two lovers are opposites ; he has seen the worst form of persecution under the nazis , while she has seen compassion as all danish citizens marched out wearing the star of David ( jewish symbol ) when the nazis asked the Jews to identify themselves thereby hiding the Jews . Naturally she has a wide eyed innocence about her . But it is she out of all people who is selected by fate for death at the hands of the Arabs ; she who constantly worried about the holocaust survivor...such is the hand of destiny in the midst of war .

And war it is , as the Jews and Arabs have to fight it out for claiming Palestine . The film has bomb blasts and assassinations and full scale fighting . The Jews' moment of triumph is shown in the movie---when the United nations passes the resolution for partitioning Palestine to form a Jewish state . And more fighting has to be done . Some Jews like the character played by Paul Newman are friendly enough with some Arabs that an Arab friend lays down his life to save him ; he is buried along with the danish girl . Naturally , the character played by Newman dreams of a nation where Jews and Arabs with live like equals . But as history tells us with the benefit of hindsight , dreams are not always fulfilled !!

Inspite of it's shortcomings , the movie has the ingredients of an epic . And I went on to like it as I saw it more . Acting is not natural but theatrical , but the director has woven the events into a well told story . Music is of course the strong point of the film , and is tinged with emotion with the Israeli national anthem being it's theme . Photography is okay .

It is a supposed-to-be-realistic portrayal of a squad that defuses bombs in post 2003 iraq . its team leader gets killed and the new leader is as unconventional as it gets . glamorises the work of soldiers who defuse improvised explosive devices . actually the work is very painstaking and dangerous . the task before the team however is endless , just like the iraq war . the more they defuse bombs they more the iraqis come out with IEDs . above all one feels the hopelessness of fighting an endless war in a muslim country where everybody is seething with violence . more of an art film than commercial . acting is good by eveyone and photography is good .

here is a piece that blows the so called 'realism' of the film however---

Its a Piece of $hit portrayal of real life war bomb sqad. Who in the world can lift 6 howitzer shells with one hand???

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An oft quoted Gandhian phrase is that if all were to follow an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, then the world would go blind. The counter to that is that if only some follow this and others don't then it is the non-violent who would go blind while the rogues will rule the world.

Godfather---I have read the novel several times many years ago , and the characters have been etched in my mind since then . The Godfather himself , his hot headed son Santino/Sonny and his mistress , his younger son Michael and his first wife Apollonia and his second and far more important wife Kay , the family advisor Tom Hagen who fails to advise properly , the heads of the family battalions Clemenza and Tessio , Rival dons Barzini and Tattaglia , and above all singer Johnny Fontane ( who was surely based on Frank Sinatra ) ; I have digested and consumed these characters in my mind during the period I read the novel again and again in my bid to analyse them , and then I forgot or rather tried to forget them when I moved on to other things in life . Compared to the times I read the novel I have seen the movie fewer times...only about three times I guess . Today was the third time . The last time I saw it , it was years ago and I wasn't reviewing films . Next time I see the movie might be years down the line , and I don't know if I would be reviewing films at that time at all....it's a now or never time to review the movie....no my review is not important , it's the movie that is important

Out of the movies based on the three novels ( Exodus , Carpetbaggers and Godfather ) that have impacted my mind enough to read them again and again , Godfather does the best justice to the novel it was based on . Exodus movie makers had to leave many events in the novel out of the movie , but director Francis Ford Coppola has managed to pack many of the events in the Godfather novel into his movie . And he has packed them in such a way that the movie is as great as the novel itself . And inspite of the limited time that a movie gives , he has managed to build every character well . Of course , he has been backed by top class acting by his lead actors . Also backed by fabulous music as background score .

The colours of the movie have a brownish hue about them , and the theme is dark---the life and happenings of a mafia family over a period of time when they lose their might and how the eventual heir manages to recoup that might . But the recoupment comes at a terrible price at the end ; the heir loses the trust of his wife in the climax scene . This is important however only to people like me who consider women's opinion important ; in the world of gangsters the opinion of women is not so important really . It's a man's world of guns and knives .

Yeah , they are gangsters really . But seeing the movie ( and also while reading the novel ) one might feel that it is the history of the ups and downs of some empire that is being recorded . The mafia head honcho is not just head he is a combination of God and father . People come to pay homage to him and kiss his hand as if he is some emperor . The people who are under his protection are never denied any demand they make . Singer Johnny Fontane asks for role in a movie and the movie's producer ( who refuses to entertain the Godfather's proposal ) gets to see his favourite horse's beheaded head on his bed the next day....no one can refuse the Godfather .

But even an emperor has powerful enemies , and so does the Godfather . At first the enemies try to co opt him into their narcotics business , but he is a man of principles that are not seen outside the movies ; he refuses to enter such a dirty business . Result---his attempted murder . For the money in narcotics is too much and his son Santino/Sonny has shown an itch for it . But once his father is attacked the son has to fight back . And Sonny does fight back in typical hot headed fashion well acted by James Caan .

But the enemies strike back again to try to kill the Godfather ( Marlon Brando) and his younger son Michael ( Al Pacino ) has to save him at cost of being given a damaging blow on his face by a crooked police captain who is an ally of the drug dealers . The Godfather never wanted him to be part of the crime business , but circumstances have sucked him in it never to leave him ever . His girlfriend Kay ( Diane Keaton ) will have to adjust eventually , even though she is not Sicilian like the entire mafia fraternity .

Riven by the need for revenge , Michael decides to kill the main drug dealer Sollozzo and the police captain in a meeting for negotiations . The movie perfectly shows the tension on the face of a person out to do a gangland killing for the first time . Once he kills , he has to flee to his father's homeland Sicily . And in his absence , the mafia gang war hots up like nothing else . Sonny becomes the de facto head of the family ; actually family being just glorified term for gang . But writer of both the movie and novel builds up the characters of these mafia gangsters as if they are great statesmen .

Yeah all great statesmen , except Sonny . In true unstatesmanlike fashion , his great weakness is his temper . And when his sister gets beaten by her husband , he shakes all security considerations aside to go and give a savage beating to his brother in law . His enemies ( the five families in alliance with the dead Sollozzo ) quickly latch on to this weakness . The brother in law ( whose ego has obviously been massively bruised by the beating he got ) is induced to beat his wife again to induce a security ignoring trip by Sonny to beat his brother in law . And as he barges out of his well protected den without his bodyguards , he is gunned down . In Sicily too , Michael who has fallen madly in love with a Sicilian girl and has married her has to see his wife killed in a bomb meant actually to kill him . How the mighty family of the Corleones have fallen.....

It's time for the Godfather to negotiate a peace with the enemies . But first a word about his acting on hearing and seeing his son Sonny dead . I feel Marlon Brando is at his finest at expressing grief at his son's death . Every muscle of his face seems to quiver with sorrow , especially when he takes the body to be laid to rest to the undertaker who had come to ask his help to take revenge on his daughter's molesters in the beginning of the movie . The daughter's molesters were soundly beaten by the Godfather's men , but such mafia help comes at a price ; you have to repay your dues to the mafia any time they ask....

At the peace negotiations , Godfather Don Corleone has to compromise with his enemies to bring back his son Michael from Sicily . And he has to promise not to take revenge for Sonny . Michael comes back and marries Kay , but the enemies are taking advantage of the Corleones' weakness to take over their territory . The Don tells Michael how to deal with them after his death , because as long as he is alive he cannot break his promise to not renew the war . In real life such gangland promises are not worth the paper they are written on , but the makers of the movie build a larger than life image of the Don as a great man ; he seemingly never breaks his promises . It is important not to get carried away and remember that only in the movies do such people exist .

Once the Don is no more , the enemies ( Barzini and Tattaglia ) make the first move to eliminate his successor Michael by co opting one of his lieutenants . But the Don had already warned Michael of this move before he died ; not for nothing was he called the Godfather . Michael then unleashes his true potential . He shows how cold and calculating he is by becoming godfather of his sister's son . Thus he puts his brother in law the father of the godchild in the dark about his true intentions to kill him in revenge for his part in Sonny's murder . Then he kills him after forcing a confession of his part in Sonny's murder from him . And he also carries to fruition an already well crafted plan to destroy his enemies like Barzini and Tattaglia and their cohorts within his own gang by gunfire . Just how loud do the guns boom in the movie ? Watch it for that....

1942---the heyday of nazi occupation of Europe . Hitler's right hand man Reinhard Heydrich is appointed as the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia ( modern day Czech republic ) and he quickly unleashes a reign of terror there , giving orders for murder of countless innocents . To stop him , the British parachute three Czechoslavs with orders to assassinate Heydrich . The Royal air force drops two of them in the wrong position 200 km away from their intended target .

The two are questioned by a german patrol and have to kill the germans . But they are helped by czechs who bribe a german driver to take the two to a doctor because one of them is wounded slightly . To the surprise of the two , the doctor first questions them and then unites them with the third member of the group . The mission is on and they prepare plans to kill Heydrich while hiding in a church along with the Czech underground resistance .

The members of the Czech resistance do not agree with the idea of killing Heydrich because the nazis would take terrible revenge by killing scores of innocent Czechs . But for the three sent from Britain , orders are orders . However the first chance to kill Heydrich is lost as another oncoming train blocks their sight just when they are going to shoot him from afar while he is travelling in a train to Berlin .

But they use the resistance members to track Heydrich's movements and find out that he regularly uses a route for reconnoitering the countryside and slows down at a particular turning point . Two members of the group plan to kill him there . They are Sergeant Jan Kubiš ( played by Timothy Bottoms ) and Sergeant Jozef Gabčík ( played by Anthony Andrews ) . The third ( Sergeant Karel Curda---played by Martin Shaw ) goes to meet his wife and child and stays there .

As Heydrich's car slows down one of the two tries to kill him upfront by sten gun but his gun jams . As he flees , Heydrich's bodyguard chases him and leaves his master unprotected . The other lobs a grenade from the other direction fatally wounding Heydrich . The two then meet in the church and members of the resistance then ask them to flee as the avenging germans are after their blood . The two decide to wait for the third member ( Curda ) to come back .

But Curda who is living with his wife gets terrified after he hears about the german massacre and destruction of the village of Lidice as revenge for Heydrich's murder . He fears for his wife and child and thinks that they would get killed too in the german orgy of revenge . He actually goes to the germans and rats out on his comrades in return for safety of his family !!

As the germans surround the church and begin to kill , the extended climax is full of pathos . Of the twosome realising to their chagrin that the comrade they waited for has actually betrayed them . Of the resistance group putting a fierce fight to the death killing many germans . At last gas is pumped into the hiding room of the two and still they hold out . Finally they are attempted to be drowned by pumping water until they are forced to shoot themselves .

The movie has decent photography , but it is the musical score that excels . The background music truly is scintillating and is rich with emotion . The nazi era is properly recreated complete with nazi salutes and uniforms and brutality . Acting and action is good but it is in emotion that the film really scores . The men find time to form dalliances with women and the grief of the women on their death is hard to watch , especially because it is a true story . Yes the movie is based on real events and what happened to each character during or after the war is told at the end . As expected , the war takes the lives of most . But the destroyed village of Lidice was rebuilt after the war , a testament to the triumph of justice .

Vivien Leigh plays Scarlet O'Hara , the daughter of a cotton plantation owner in southern United states . They have black slaves on the plantation , but the movie shows them to be treated more like servants than slaves and they fuss over Scarlet . But at the time of the beginning of the movie itself , their whole world is on the verge of collapse . The northerners have declared war on the south to free the slaves and history tells us that the south was defeated .

But the southerners are full of martial spirit and scoff on anyone who tells them about the superiority of the northerners ( yankees they are called ) over the south in terms of resources . One such person is Rhett Butler ( played by Clark Gable ) , some kind of freelance warrior and philanderer who visits prostitutes .

In typically filmy fashion , Rhett falls in love with Scarlet at first sight . But Scarlet loves another man who rejects her and she marries a boy to spite the person she loves . Soon she is a widow as her husband is killed in action . Similar is the fate of the whole southern armies as the yankees invade Atlanta in Georgia and bring fire and destruction with them . Scarlet who is in Atlanta is helped to escape from Atlanta by Rhett , but arrives on her plantation to find her mother dead and her father gone crazy due to the destruction of everything near and dear to him ; yes the plantation has been destroyed .

But Scarlet is determined to survive and stands like a rock commanding everyone to help rebuild everything . She grows up from a young girl being fussed over by everyone to be a strong lady...and Rhett Butler does occasionally drop by because he still loves her . But he refuses to financially help her and Scarlet marries second time to an older person to get his money . But he is killed too and Scarlet finally accepts Rhett's proposal .

They have a daughter and but she dies too . And Scarlett continues to love the man she loved from the start . His wife is kind and understands , but later she is dead too , asking Scarlet to look after her husband . Rhett realises that it is time for a reunion of Scarlet with her man and decides to move out .

But the man says he loved only his wife and too late Scarlett realises that she was so mistaken in rejecting the love of Rhett , but he is gone . She decides to go back to her place of strength---her plantation , from where she will again make a move to regain her lost husband . Not a loser or sissy is our heroine....

And I found myself sympathising with Scarlet O'Hara , the woman who knew no fear and fought like tigress among all the vicissitudes of fortune . And among all these vicissitudes , these southerners yearn for their past . The past where there were huge plantations of which they were their owners and had black slaves and grew cotton . Of grand parties on those plantations . All of which has been swept away by the tidal wave of history....gone with the wind !!

The movie shows the black slaves loyally co operating with the southern ( confederate ) forces and talking of licking the yankees , a fact that I found incredible . The yankees were coming to liberate them weren't they ? And no scene of blacks being ill treated or being unhappy at their position . In the world of Margaret Mitchell ( the novelist who wrote the novel on which the movie is based ) the blacks are satisfied with their position in the existing order and indeed co operate with preserving it . No hint of revolt . A conversation says that the whites treated their black slaves well . Sounds unreal and full of blissful ignorance at best and neglect of the situation on the ground at worst .

I would have been more happy to see Scarlet and Rhett reunited at the end , and was disappointed to see him go . Yet I liked the movie . Colours photography and music is good and Vivien Leigh has put her heart and soul in her acting . Much appreciated by me and of course much loved by the public which made the movie such a huge hit .

William Holden plays an out of luck movie script writer named Joe Gillis whose scripts are not accepted by most directors . While running away from men trying to take his car because he has not paid it's dues , he accidentally stumbles into the mansion of a forgotten movie star of the era of silent films named Norma Desmond ( Gloria Swanson ) . She lives in her own world where she is still supposed to be a great star with a huge fan following , though it is actually her own butler ( played by Erich von Stroheim ) who writes the fan letters . And he too was a former movie director who had discovered Norma but whom she married and later divorced , but became her butler because he could not live apart from her . Can things get quirkier than that ?

Yes , they can get quirkier . Because Norma takes a fancy to Joe and decides to make the much younger Joe her keep , and Joe accepts because he has run out of funds . Norma wants to make grand comeback to films even though she is 53 , and Joe becomes the scriptwriter of her bizarre comeback movie . But actually he is interested in another girl called Betty ( Nancy Olsen ) and soon Betty spurns her fiance for him .

But Joe has got too much entangled in the situation created by Norma to ever get out . She wants the great director Cecil B. DeMille to direct her film , and her faded but still remembered star power is on display as she enters his shoot to be warmly greeted by him and recognised by people . But he is not really interested in directing her .

The crisis occurs when Norma discovers that Joe and Betty are in love . And when Joe tries to walk out with some harsh words of truth , she fires a gun on him....his fate is like the male spider who mates with the female spider only to find that there is no release as she devours him . As the police come to arrest Norma with reporters for shooting the arrest , she has gone sufficiently mad to think that the scene is of the shooting of a film being enacted .

The film actually is in touch with the truth , for in the film industry there are several former stars who live in the memory of the former halcyon days . The Bollywood actor Rajesh Khanna was one such person , who was constantly reliving his former superstardom long after it had perished . The dialogue by Norma in the movie saying 'I am big . It is the pictures that got small.' aptly sums up this attitude . Not surprisingly , the film is regarded as a classic . Acting is good , if you are willing to tolerate Gloria Swanson's overdramatic acting as Norma Desmond . Photography is good if you are willing to tolerate black and white colours and small screen format .